Study On China’s Technical Assistance To Africa In Agriculture

The global political and economic structure has undergone profound changes because developing countries are rising as emerging power since the twenty-one century. On the one hand, the strategic position of the African continent in onging development of other countries has been highlighted, on the other hand, Africa especially in sub Saharan Africa is still facing severe poverty and hunger issues. The scale of the international community’s development aid to Africa has dramatically increased, and the engagement of China as a emerging donor country in Africa has received more and more attention from researchers. In 2000, China and Africa set up the "Forum on China-Africa Cooperation", which can be seen as a milestone of that China’s assistance to Africa stepped into a regulated stage. The white paper "China’s foreign aid" in 2014 and the newly released document "China’s policy on Africa" in 2015 show that China has begun to emphasize the stability of its assistance to Africa with long-term policy. With the development of China-Africa dialogue platform, the bilateral cooperation between China and Africa is increasingly close and China’s assistance to African countries is also expanding. According to AidData, China’s total bilateral aid projects in Africa in 2011 has exceeded 2700 million dollars. Compared to the increasing number of the aid volume from China to Africa, the study on China’s aid to Africa is still in its infancy. The existing research mainly summed up phases of China’s aid to Africa, or generally discussed Chinese aid projects and gave some suggestions of policy making. On the one hand, the data regarding China’s aid is difficult to obtain, which becomes a problem for related studies; on the other hand, China’s assistance to Africa has not been a standardized system, and it requires being improved at the moment.From perspective of resource transfer, China’s assistance to Africa can be classified by financial aid, technical assistance and material assistance. Out of which, technical assistance is main form of China’s aid to Africa. Agricultural technology is so demanding by those agriculture oriented development countries in Africa, which determines that China’s technical assistance in Africa is mainly about transfer of agricultural technology. China is a large agricultural country dominated by smallholders, and it has accumulated rich experience and lessons in the agricultural development. The combination of Chinese agricultural technology and African abundant agricultural resources will create a huge potential for Africa economic development and China-Africa agricultural cooperation. China’s assistance to Africa has always advocated the idea of "teach fishing instead of offering fish". Under the framework of South-South cooperation, China has increased the intensity of agricultural technical assistance and cooperation in Africa in recent years. So far, China has already built more than 20 agricultural technology demonstration centers in Africa, and sent thousands of agricultural technology experts to Africa. What is the situation and effect of China’s agricultural technical assistance in Africa? To improve the effectiveness of agricultural technical assistance, it is necessary to understand the factors that affect the diffusion of agricultural technology in Africa. Thus, the main contents of this dissertation are given as follows:first of all, the two modes of Chin’s agricultural technical assistance, including sending Chinese agricultural experts and building agricultural technology demonstration centers, are analyzed and summarized; secondly, from the micro perspective of farmers, the diffusion of agricultural technology among farmers as dynamic process and factors affecting farmers’ adoption behavior are examined; finally, through comparison with aid in Africa provided by the United State, the issues regarding institutional arrangement for China’s aid to Africa are summarized from a macro level, and suggestions are proposed accordingly.Based on the research contents, this paper establishes both qualitative and quantitative methods as follows:firstly, implementing questionnaire survey and in-depth interview to Chinese experts who participated assistance in African countries. From view of those experts, effect and issues of the mode of sending agricultural experts to Africa are examined; taking the first Chinese agricultural technology demonstration center in Africa as a typical case, field research and interview are used for data collection, the present situation and issues of agricultural technology demonstration center are summarized; secondly, the method of agent-based modeling and simulation is used for analyzing dynamic evolution of technology diffusion in the farmers’networks; and based on empirical data of Ethiopian farmers collected during field research, the Logit model is used to analyze the influencing factors of farmers’ technology adoption decision, in order to provide some evidence for conclusion of the evolutionary analysis; thirdly, using the comparative analysis method, the US’ assistance to Africa is reviewed, so as to provide direction for future development of China’s aid system.Finally, the conclusions of this dissertation are presented as follows. Firstly, effectiveness of the mode of sending agricultural experts to Africa is not good enough. The communication barriers caused by language differences, lack of prior planning for assistance work and less regulated budget management result in a low working efficiency, non-specific goals and low enthusiasm of working. Second, the first agricultural technology demonstration center in Africa basically has received the local government’s welcome and recognition, but still need further policy support for the project, in order to facilitate the import of materials required for the project, promote the sustainable development at the later period of agricultural technology demonstration center, effectively protect China’s personal and property security in Africa, and further promote the substantial cooperation in terms of both management and technology. Thirdly, farmers are ultimate receivers of agricultural technology assistance. Evolutionary analysis of agricultural technology diffusion shows that learning among farmers is an important driving force for the diffusion of agricultural technology and social norm regarding traditional technology slows down the diffusion of new technology in the rural area. The expansion of farmers’ social network is helpful to knowledge transfer regarding the new technology, but it is difficult to break the social norms of the traditional technology when scale of farmers’network reaches an enough large point. The empirical evidence in Ethiopia show that family resources, such as the number of family labor and land size, have a significant negative impact on farmers’adoption of new technologies. Wheat planting area, the technology of farmers’ perceived usefulness and ease of use have a significant positive effect on farmers’ adoption of new technologies respectively. Farmers’ perceived social norms regarding the traditional technology have a negative effect on farmers’ adoption of new technologies. The evidence to some extent supports the result of the evolutionary analysis above. Fourthly, compared with the assistance from the United States, China’s assistance in Africa should move forward to institutionalization, scientization, transparency and multilateral cooperation to meet international advanced experience, so as to enhance China’s effectiveness of technical assistance in Africa by long-term stable policy of the macro assistance system, and promote China-Africa Cooperation in the new stage.